The St Vincent and the Grenadines Botanic Gardens is located in Kingstown, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. Established in 1765, it is the oldest botanic garden in the Western Hemisphere. [1]
The magnificent Botanic Gardens are currently one of the most visited sites in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. [2] A historic landmark of major national, regional and global significance, it currently occupies approximately 20 acres (8.1 ha).
If it existed, the garden's royal charter has neither survived nor yet been discovered. However, letters exchanged between General Robert Melville and the island surgeon botanist Dr George Young show that island commissioners were on 15 December 1765 directed to lay aside six acres of land as part of a 'steady plan' to facilitate botanical discoveries and encourage the cultivating of nutritional, medicinal and commercial 'improvements' for Saint Vincent's population. [3] Accounts compiled later by Young's successor Dr Alexander Anderson are more detailed, affirming that the garden was created to facilitate the '[introduction of such] plants as might be of advantage' to the British West Indies and the 'nation at large'; namely in the provision of new 'foods, medicines or batches of commerce' that could not be cultivated in Britain's North American colonies. [4] The function of the garden therefore appears to have been congruous with the establishment of other eighteenth-century Caribbean Gardens at Bath and Liguanea in Jamaica, where superintendents were asked to 'explore indigenous plants, ascertain their values and uses', 'do the same with exotic plants', and import seeds that would 'prove beneficial to Britain'. [5] In following the broader colonial programme of 'plant interchange', the St. Vincent Botanic Garden was designed to cultivate new West Indian export markets by way of introducing foreign plant species from the East. Though a 'premium' had been offered by the Royal Society in 1760 for the cultivation of useful plant species, there is no evidence that Melville ever claimed a reward for the Botanic Garden.
Unlike other colonial projects, the garden did not attract government funding from Britain. Instead, documents indicate it was privately financed by Melville during his tenure in the Windward Isles, and Anderson's 'Account' shows he directed the commanding officer at the Kingstown Garrison to requisition a plot of barrack land for the garden. He then established a correspondence with governors on the Spanish Main 'to bring more valuable plants of that country' to Saint Vincent, and left Dr. Young '[with his] library relating to botanical history', 'other handbooks of science', and 'all his mathematical instruments'. [4] According to a letter dated 20 July 1766, Melville also arranged for cinnamon seeds to be sent to Doctor Young from the French Island of Guadeloupe, and by 1773 the garden contained 52 plant species. [6]
Surviving plant catalogues – of which there are five – provide a quantitative account of the garden's expansion from 1765. These documents show a twenty-fivefold increase in the number of plants when classified by genus until the early nineteenth century; 52 in 1773, 769 in 1792, 796 in 1793, and 1,311 by 1806. [7] Classed according to the floristic kingdoms from which they originated, the garden's botanists acquired plants from three of the world's six photochoria; approximately twelve per cent from Holocratic North America and Europe; forty-one per cent from Neotropical Central and South America, and forty-seven per cent from the Palaeotropical regions of South-East Asia, the Indian subcontinent and Africa. [8] Given the paucity of government funding and logistical support provided for the garden, many of these plant species were sent by French botanists working from Saint Domingue, Martinique, Guadeloupe and Cayenne. Notable participants in this network of plant exchange included the marquis de Bouillé François Claude Amour du Chariol, Governor General of the French Antilles from 1777 to 1783, and Jean-Baptiste Victor Hugues, Governor of Guadeloupe from 1794 to 1795 and French Guiana from 1802 to 1809.
Following the Peace of Paris in (1763) the newly appointed governor of the southern British Caribbean islands, Robert Melville, and the military surgeon in St. Vincent, George Young, decided to create a botanic garden, primarily to provide medicinal plants for the military and improve the life and economy of the colony. Eighteenth-century botanists placed great emphasis on introducing valuable and commercial plants from the East Indies to Kew Gardens in England to be sent later to the American tropics. The Royal Society fostered the introduction, establishment, and dissemination of highly prized species.
Melville, anticipating modern ethnobotany, urged that "physical practitioners of the country, natives of experience, and even old Caribs and slaves who have dealt in cures might be worth taking notice of, and if at any time you should think that a secret may be got at or even an improvement for small expense, I shall readily pay for it." The War Department (UK) and the Honourable East India Company sent seeds and plants from tropical India and from British North Borneo, Sabah, and Sarawak in the East Indies. Other species came from French and Caribbean sources, such as cinnamon from Guadeloupe and Grenada. From Kew Gardens came seeds from China. [9]
Under George Young (1765–1785), and the capable and enthusiastic guidance of the second superintendent curator, Alexander Anderson, who served from 1785 to 1811, the Botanical Gardens quickly attained an enviable reputation and received wide acclaim. [9] The garden attracted talented successor curators, including William Lochead, George Caley, Henry Powell, and William Sands. [9]
A third-generation clone of a breadfruit tree in the twenty-first century collection of the gardens came from an original plant brought in 1793 by Captain William Bligh (of Bounty fame). [2] In 1787–88 Captain Bligh made his ill-fated voyage on HMS Bounty to Tahiti to collect breadfruit and other useful plants for the West Indies. [10] Undaunted by the notorious mutiny of his first crew, Bligh again set sail for Tahiti aboard HMS Providence. He completed his mission in Kingstown, St. Vincent on January 23, 1793, with plants from the South Seas. [11] The Botanic Garden's curator Alexander Anderson took great care of these plants, and the success of all those efforts is evident from the widespread distribution of breadfruit, the most useful food plant throughout the West Indies.
The first half of the nineteenth century was a lean time for colonial botanic gardens. By 1850, due to a lack of interest and maintenance, the St. Vincent gardens had fallen into disrepair. Local efforts in St. Vincent initiated in 1884 began to revive the gardens; by 1890 the work was reactivated as part of a larger agricultural and botanical scheme.
The Botanical Gardens soon regained their former glory and beauty, and the plant collections were recovered. Considerable attention was given to experimental work in the gardens on economic crops until 1944 (cotton, arrowroot, cacao and sugarcane). The layout of the re-established gardens was improved by the construction of a small Doric Temple, by road building and by the continuous introduction of plants to maintain and add to the collection. [2]
The Nicholas Wildlife Aviary Complex, located within the gardens, maintains a captive breeding program to conserve the vulnerable St Vincent parrot, Amazona guildingii, the national bird. These endemic parrots can be found in the wild and also in the aviary. [2]
Several members of the British royal family have planted a tree in the garden, where pink poui ( Tabebuia rosea ) was planted by Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex, on 27 February 2012, and a baobab ( Adansonia digitata ) tree was planted by Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, on 28 November 2016. [2]
The indigenous inhabitants of the islands of St. Vincent and the Grenadines were various Amerindian groups. The arrivals of Europeans in the early 16th century did not lead to long term settlement, only in 1717 did the French occupy the island in Barrouallie, though the English laid claim on St. Vincent in 1627. The Treaty of Paris (1763) saw St. Vincent ceded to Britain. Frictions with the British led to the First and Second Carib War in the mid- to late-18th century but the British held on to the islands. A Crown Colony government was installed in 1877, a Legislative Council created in 1925, and universal adult suffrage granted in 1951. Following a referendum in 1979, St. Vincent and the Grenadines became the last of the Windward Islands to gain independence on 27 October 1979.
Vice-Admiral William Bligh was a British officer in the Royal Navy and a colonial administrator. He is best known for the mutiny on HMS Bounty, which occurred in 1789 when the ship was under his command. After being set adrift in Bounty's launch by the mutineers, Bligh and those loyal to him all reached Timor alive, after a journey of 3,618 nautical miles. Bligh's logbooks documenting the mutiny were inscribed on the UNESCO Australian Memory of the World register on 26 February 2021.
Breadfruit is a species of flowering tree in the mulberry and jackfruit family (Moraceae) believed to be a domesticated descendant of Artocarpus camansi originating in New Guinea, the Maluku Islands, and the Philippines. It was initially spread to Oceania via the Austronesian expansion. It was further spread to other tropical regions of the world during the Colonial Era. British and French navigators introduced a few Polynesian seedless varieties to Caribbean islands during the late 18th century. Today it is grown in some 90 countries throughout South and Southeast Asia, the Pacific Ocean, the Caribbean, Central America and Africa. Its name is derived from the texture of the moderately ripe fruit when cooked, similar to freshly baked bread and having a potato-like flavor.
The flag of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines is a Canadian pale triband consisting of blue, gold, and green bands charged with three green diamonds at the centre. Adopted in 1985 to replace a similar design used from the time of independence, it has been the flag of Saint Vincent since that year. The design of the present flag entailed substituting the country's coat of arms on a breadfruit leaf with the diamonds. They are a reference to both the letter "V", which is the first letter of the country's name, and its nickname as the "Gems of the Antilles" and "Jewels of the Caribbean". Accordingly, the flag itself has been given the moniker of "The Gems".
Kingstown is the capital city of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. The city has the main port and the biggest commercial center of the islands. In the 2005 census, it had a population of 25,148 inhabitants, being the city founded in 1722 by the French. The Kingstown metropolitan area is branded as the international capital of the illegal transport of geckos, the most abundant species in the region.
Bequia is the largest island in the Grenadines at 7 square miles (18 km2). It is part of the country of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and is approximately 15 kilometres (9.3 mi) from the nation's capital, Kingstown, on the main island, Saint Vincent. Bequia means "island of the clouds" in the ancient Arawak. The island's name was also 'Becouya' as part of the Grenadines.
HMS Providence was a sloop of the Royal Navy, famous for being commanded by William Bligh on his second breadfruit voyage between 1791 and 1794.
General Robert Melvill LLD was a Scottish soldier in the British Army, antiquary, botanist, inventor, and slave plantation owner. He was owner of the Melville Hall (Dominica) and Carnbee (Tobago) estates.
Ulmus minorsubsp.canescens is a small deciduous tree occasionally known by the common names grey elm, grey-leafed elm, and hoary elm. Its natural range extends through the lands of the central and eastern Mediterranean, from southern Italy, the islands of Sicily, Malta, Crete, Rhodes and Cyprus, and through Thrace to Turkey, and as far south as Israel, where it is now considered rare and endangered in the wild. The tree is typically found amidst the comparatively humid coastal woodlands and scrublands.
HMS Bounty, also known as HM Armed Vessel Bounty, was a British merchant ship that the Royal Navy purchased in 1787 for a botanical mission. The ship was sent to the South Pacific Ocean under the command of William Bligh to acquire breadfruit plants and transport them to the British West Indies to provide a cheap food source for the West Indies' large enslaved population. That mission was never completed owing to a 1789 mutiny led by acting lieutenant Fletcher Christian, an incident now popularly known as the Mutiny on the Bounty. The mutineers later burned Bounty while she was moored at Pitcairn Island in the Southern Pacific Ocean in 1790. An American adventurer helped land several remains of Bounty in 1957.
The following is an alphabetical list of topics related to the nation of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.
William Lochead FRSE MWS was a Scottish surgeon and botanist. He served as the curator of the St Vincent Botanical Garden in the West Indies from 1811 to 1815, succeeding his friend Alexander Anderson.
David Nelson was gardener-botanist on the third voyage of James Cook, and botanist on HMS Bounty under William Bligh at the time of the famous mutiny.
Lansdown Guilding was a theologian and naturalist. He is best known for his works on the flora and fauna of St Vincent in particular and on the Caribbean in general. He wrote numerous illustrated papers for journals of scholarly societies in England including the first descriptions of velvet worms and scale insects in the ground pearl family.
Bath is a settlement in south-east Jamaica. It is named after the British city of the same name. Bath Fountain and Bath Botanical Gardens are located in the town of Bath.
Alexander Anderson was a Scottish surgeon, explorer and botanist who worked as Superintendent to the Botanical Garden on the Windward Island of Saint Vincent from 1785 to 1811.
Félix Delahaye was a French gardener who served on the Bruni d'Entrecasteaux voyage (1791–93) that was sent by the French National Assembly to search for the missing explorer Jean-François La Perouse. He was also one of the earliest European gardeners to work in Australia.
George Young was a British military surgeon and botanist who served as the first superintendent of the Botanic Gardens St. Vincent in Kingstown, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. The naturalist John Ellis, in his book Some Additional Observations on the Method of Preserving Seeds from Foreign Parts described Young as "principal surgeon to the [St. Vincent military] hospital, whose indefatigable zeal in collecting and propagating a variety of the most valuable plants, is known to all the curious botanists about London." Young's noteworthy efforts in cultivating a variety of tropical plants important for the economy of the British colonies was recognized by the Royal Society of Arts in 1774, which awarded him a gold medal for his work. Named as one of the pupils of the botanist John Hope in the later's entry in the ODNB.
Thomas Dancer was a British physician and colonial botanist.